How good listener are you? Do you easily understand when you listen to conversations of native English speakers? How important is your listening skills in effective English communication?

Hearing is different from listening. Listening is more of understanding the content of a conversation while hearing is not focusing on details and the words just pass by your ears.

Native English speakers speak differently from those who have English as their second language. They have this certain style that is most of the time difficult to comprehend for non-natives. They use expressions or slang words popular from their hometowns and speak really fast.

In this episode, Gabby talks about some tips on how to understand fast native English speakers conversations.

Here are the mentioned tips:

Train your ears – Take time to listen to fast conversation of natives.

Do not overwhelm yourself – Start with listening to native English materials with at least two minutes length.

Do not listen with your eyes – Understand the conversation with your ears though your eyes can give you hints.

Spend more time listening to native speakers. Choose what you are interested in. It is totally fine that you don’t understand each word they say. It is not going to be an easy and short process, it takes time but it is very effective.

Bring the English language to your daily life. Use it as often as possible and see your improvements quickly.